


Wild Things

by rrosebudd



Category: Cyberpunk & Cyberpunk 2020 (Roleplaying Games)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gang Violence, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Poverty, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26430931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rrosebudd/pseuds/rrosebudd
Summary: Joyce is a measly reporter, and ever since losing her family, she's having trouble surviving on the streets by herself. She shows up on her best friend's doorstep one day, beaten half to death, and the two talk. They come up with plans for trying to keep her alive in the future, by illegal means or otherwise.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	Wild Things

The Combat Zone, while absolutely riddled with gangsters and murderers and druggies alike, could be a pretty manageable place to live, at least for people who knew how to handle themselves. People like Carter, who hunkered down in living quarters that lay so far off the beaten path that only those he wanted to find his apartment could actually succeed in doing so, fared just fine. 

Other people did not. 

But what did that matter to him? Carter was doing well, what with his new gig that offered plenty of protection and benefits, and these days, the screams out in the streets were just a fact of life. Every man for himself was simply the way it was out here, and that was alright by him. 

It was late afternoon as he found himself plopped in front of his television, hunched over his coffee table and rifling through the drawers. He had a while until his meeting, and even though he had been in this business for quite some time, he was still in the business of first impressions, so he wanted everything to be in order. 

The rest of his living room was a mess, and a mostly illegal one at that, but the many compartments throughout his house were immaculately organized, if only to make his job easier. 

However, his concentration for getting everything in order was suddenly broken, as a knock on his front door sounded through the room and caused his head to snap up so fast, he nearly gave himself whiplash. 

The knock wasn’t violent, or demanding, as one might expect when living in what was essentially a warzone, but tentative, and almost quiet. His brow furrowed, and he stared at the door for a long moment. The person he was expecting wasn’t due yet. 

Carter stood up, his hands a bit unsteady, as they tended to be, and he headed over to the front of his apartment. He listened for a moment, but he couldn’t pick out any sounds of movement or talking, which he supposed was a good sign. 

He shook his head to himself and leaned forward, shutting one eye and spying through the peephole to view the space outside his door, one hand hovering over the lock. The fisheye lens only allowed a distorted view of the outside, but that seemed to be all he needed. 

Though he couldn’t see much, he did recognize the long curtain of frizzy dark hair that partially shielded the face of a visitor he knew all too well. The corner of his mouth quirked up and he shook his head again with a breath of amusement. As much as he liked to make time for her, he wasn’t so sure he could right now. He pulled back from the door viewer. 

“Key, c’mon,” Carter chuckled, calling to her through the door, and he flicked open the lock. “You know I love when you come over.” He opened the front door and leaned on the frame with a bit of a smarmy, if exasperated, smile. “But I got a buyer coming in, like, forty-five, so I don’t think I-”

She lifted her head, and his smile dropped. 

The face of the friend he knew was not the same as the last time he’d seen her, and the sight of her made his stomach flip. Her brown skin was decorated with spots of dark bruises and drying blood, some on her arms, more on her neck and shoulders. 

Her clothes were dirtied and torn beyond repair, with more cuts beneath the rips, but it was to her face that Carter’s gaze kept drifting. 

A thick gash ran from her lower cheek to the bottom of her jaw, and appeared to still be in the process of scabbing over, while her right eye was swollen shut completely, with deep bruises circling her eyelid, an array of purple and blue and black. 

If she had been crying, she wasn’t now, and as she met his eyes, she appeared to be tired more than anything else. The two were silent for a long moment, Carter’s expression slack with the sheer shock of taking in her beaten appearance. 

“Joyce,” he breathed after another horrified pause, and he stepped outside, a hand raising as though to cradle her face. “Holy shit, what-?”

She flinched back as he advanced on her, her eyes screwing shut tight and her face quickly lowering again. He stepped back again, giving her space. 

There was a silence once more as Joyce caught her breath, her exhales a little shaky, but less so the more she composed herself. She looked up to Carter again, who watched her patiently with deep concern in his light eyes. “Can I come in,” she muttered flatly.

Carter quickly stepped back into the doorway to let her through, giving a frantic nod of confirmation, which was mirrored by a much meeker, grateful nod from Joyce. She sniffled and ducked past him into the apartment, while he stuck his head out the door, if only to see if he could identify any possible assailant in the nearby area, but there was no one around that he could immediately fight, so he shut the door behind them and headed inside as well. 

The woman stood awkwardly by the door, her demeanor making her appear much smaller than someone of her normally tall stature might look, but Carter came up behind her and gently put a hand on her arm. She looked as though she wanted to shy away again, but she didn’t.

“Here, just-” He spoke low, and softly guided her to the couch, his touch tender, but significantly shakier than it was before he saw her. “You sit down, I’ll… get something for that eye, okay?” He nodded cautiously, his brow still creased. 

Joyce caught his eye with an almost indiscernible nod, and she headed over to the sofa on unsteady feet to sit down. He watched her, and when he could be certain she didn’t need his help to stay on her feet, Carter turned and all but darted to the kitchen. 

He grabbed a dish cloth hanging on the handle of a cupboard and immediately flipped on the faucet to the kitchen sink, running the water for several moments as cold as it would go, before soaking the cloth in it. He shut off the sink and wrung out the fabric.

Joyce was sitting slumped over on the couch, picking at her cracked cuticles with slightly trembling hands, as Carter came rushing back over with the damp cloth in his hand, and he practically tripped on the way to sit down next to her, jostling her just a bit. 

“Okay, here,” he panted, nearly out of breath already, and brought it to her face, but paused. “Can I…?”

She made a small vocable of agreement and nodded, bringing her own hands up to cup his and slowly press the cold compress to her swollen eye. He let go and allowed her to apply pressure on her own, sitting back, but not too far, and watching her face with worried eyes. 

“Do you… want to talk about it?” He spoke up after a moment. He raised his hand slowly to her forehead, and very lightly began to brush her long hair away from her face and out of the way of the compress. 

Even in her state, Joyce was still able to roll her eyes, or at least, the one that was visible, and she shrugged nonchalantly, as though she hadn’t just been on death’s door. 

“There’s not much to talk about,” she mumbled, and rested her right elbow on her knee to help keep weight pressed to her eye. “I… just fucked up, I guess,” she added in a grumble, barely intelligible as she looked down to avoid her friend’s stare. 

His fingers softly ran through the hair hanging by her battered face, though they occasionally got caught in the rough and knotted texture, so he was careful. He was quiet, and didn’t prod. He gathered her hair behind her shoulders, waiting for her to continue, and she did, as he knew she would, after a moment of getting lost in her own busy mind. 

“It was dumb, I fell asleep on this abandoned street and was… pleasantly awoken by a boot to the face,” Joyce exhaled and took the cloth off her eye to rub the swollen wound with her other hand. 

“They started… yelling, some bullshit about being ‘on the wrong turf’. I tried to run, they chased me down,” she gestured with the cloth back and forth before putting it back on her eye, “I’m pretty fast, but as you can see, not fast enough. I should probably go jogging more.” She mused aloud, bitterness still aloft in her weak tone. 

Carter offered a small scoff, and sat back. Joyce sighed. “There were three of ‘em. No guns, luckily, but it didn’t really matter, since they packed one hell of a punch just fine without them,” she forced a small laugh, if only to ease the seriousness each of them had so evident in their faces. 

Her attempt to lighten the situation only made Carter frown, and he draped an arm along the top of the couch, just shy of her shoulders. He jerked his chin toward her. “Which gang? Slaughterhouse?” 

She blew air out through puffed cheeks and shook her head. “Blood Razors.”

He nodded with a thoughtful hum, rolling his eyes at the thought. “Shitheads,” he sneered. 

Joyce gave him a grateful but short-lived half-smile. “Tell me about it.” She paused, retracing her steps. “I ran before they could do any, like, mortal damage, so that’s a plus. But I collapsed in an alley somewhere, woke up the next day, and…” she trailed off, and vaguely gestured to her gracious host, who understood. 

“Then you came here,” he finished for her. 

Joyce nodded, her shoulders slumping, as though only for the first time realizing the weight of her situation was now put on her friend’s shoulders, too. “I… didn’t know where else to go,” she admitted under her breath. “Honestly, it was either you or-”

“Hawkes,” Carter interrupted again, but the two ended up speaking the name simultaneously: her with dejection, him with severe distaste. 

“I mean,” she shrugged, “at least he would deserve the hassle of dealing with me. You don’t.”

He made a sound of disgust and rolled his eyes again, barely letting her finish before he put in his two cents. “You gotta stay away from that guy. If you came to him for help, he’d hang it over your head until you died. Guilt trip you into sex, or something. He’s a dirtbag.” 

She blew a strand of hair out of her face that had fallen back down. “Yeah, I really didn’t want the Fangs of Justice on my back, either. So I steered clear. Obviously.” She shuddered at the thought of crossing into that territory, let alone begging her ex for help. She liked to think she made the right choice.

Carter shook his head with a short exhale through his nose. “Jesus, you need better friends.” 

Joyce glanced to him with another sad smile, her visible dark eye heavy lidded. “I have you, don’t I?”

He snorted, and returned her smile in earnest, but the melancholy tone was the same. “You could do better.” 

She frowned, and was about to refute him, but he stood suddenly, and she didn’t get the chance. He headed around the couch and back to the kitchen. “You want something to drink? Water? Coffee?” He called to her as he left the room, and she was left to watch him go. “I have other stuff, but day drinking is normally frowned upon.” 

She laughed at that, albeit weakly, and it hurt her ribs. Those were probably bruised, too. She coughed. “Um- coffee would be good,” she watched the doorframe of the kitchen, seeing his shadow move along the dirty tile floor. 

“On it,” Carter called back. “Keep that cold on your eye, I’ll see if I got anything for those cuts, okay?”

Joyce sat forward again and leaned forward. “Okay,” she agreed, and added a sincere “thank you” at the end of her call. 

There was quiet again as Carter began rifling through his kitchen cabinets, at least, as quiet as the clanking of mugs in another room could be. She sighed and listened, keeping pressure on her eye with the cloth that was quickly losing its cold. Her face hurt. Her everything hurt, actually. 

Without Carter right in front of her, doting over her injuries, she was able to think, and feel everything in its entirety. The soft expression that stared ahead and patiently waited for her friend to return slowly fell and darkened on her face. This wasn’t right. 

He worked in the kitchen for several moments, brewing a pot of barely-hot coffee in his rundown coffee maker, keeping an ear out in case anything went south back in the living room. All seemed well, however, and he soon came back out of the kitchen with a mug in each hand. 

As he headed back into the main room, Joyce was staring blankly into nothing, a troubled expression stuck on her normally kind face, with one hand still pressing to her eye. Carter sat back down next to her and placed the cups onto the coffee table, pushing one her way and taking one for himself. He offered her a smile, though it faltered when she didn’t acknowledge his presence. 

He opened his mouth to bring her back to reality, but she cut him off, her voice suddenly breathy and frail. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” she breathed, almost inaudibly. Her eyes began to water. 

Carter’s brow furrowed, and a pang of hurt flashed across his face, unsure if he’d even heard her correctly. “What?” 

She felt him stiffen. “N-Not  _ this _ ,” she waved her hand between them, before bringing it up to her head and curling it into a fist around a clump of hair. She took the cloth off her eye for a second, if only to make her point clear. 

“ _ This _ ,” she gestured to her face, and began to stammer, “the- the sleeping on the streets, the skipping meals, dodging booster gangs and almost winding up dead every other week because I can’t fucking fight back, I can’t-” 

Joyce ran out of breath before she could finish, and she nearly gasped for air. She threatened to slump forward again, but Carter was suddenly kneeling in front of her, his hands on her face, moving the cloth out of the way so he could meet her eyes, and grounding her as best he could. 

“Whoa, hey, look at me,” he urged, firmly cupping her cheeks and forcing her eyes on his. “Look at me, you’re gonna be okay.”

Her eyes were big and frantic as they locked on his, and she shivered as he spoke to her. “This is just a rough patch, you know that. You’ll get back on your feet in no time, yeah?” He reassured her slowly with a tone that had been practiced before, one hand brushing her hair back in the same fashion, though his fingers twitched a bit worse. 

The breaths she took were shaky, but after a long moment, she forced herself to nod. His mirrored hers, and slowly took his hands back. He took the cloth and gently wiped at her cheeks, though no tears had managed to escape, and he sat back. 

“It just-” she managed, shaking her head to herself, as she reached for her mug and took it into her palms. “It feels like I never will.”

A poignant pause swelled between them, Carter at a loss for comforting words. He sighed and brought his mug to his lips, nodding to her, to gesture for her to do the same, and she did, though both of them threatened to spill their coffee with the sheer amount of unsteadiness in their respective hands. His was worse, significantly. 

The two were silent for several minutes, save for the sipping of coffee. Carter kept flashing his gaze toward her every so often to keep tabs on her expression. She was deep in thought, as he would expect, but she was more focused on the contents of her mug than she was in engaging in conversation. 

They sat like that for a while, Joyce nearly having finished her coffee, when she finally spoke up.

“I might just-”

“Nope.” 

Carter cut her off before she was three words in. Her head snapped up and she all but glared at him, her brow lowering and her eyes narrowed. 

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” she raised her upper lip at him, and fought the urge to roll her eyes again. 

“Yes, I do,” he responded coolly without even looking at her. “We’ve talked about this.” 

Joyce made a disbelieving scoff, and went back to her mug. She tossed back the last bit of cold grits and dropped her cup back on the table, before slumping back on the couch with a huff. 

He shook his head at her, getting up off the couch and gathering both of their mugs in his hands. He headed off to the kitchen and disappeared for several moments, spurring more sounds of rustling and clanging and leaving Joyce to her own thoughts again. 

Carter reappeared with a roll of bandages in one hand and a cup of water in the other. He took his seat next to her once more and placed the items on the table, while his companion watched him numbly, though her panic had subsided. 

He reached across her to take the drying cloth off the table, and he dipped it into the water to wet it once more. “Just gonna clean these, okay?” He prefaced, looking to her face for the go-ahead. She didn’t appear to be listening, but she handed him her arm nonetheless, which was engraved with quite a myriad of cuts, likely from the wolvers of which those gang members were so fond. 

He began to dab at the scabbing blood along her arm, as she stared off in front of her, her head tilted and her mind silently contemplating something Carter couldn’t see.

“I could do it, you know.” She broke the silence after another moment. “I’d be a great joygirl.” 

Her friend shot her a look from under his brow, and snorted. He rolled his eyes, and ran some of the water over her wrist. “I’m not saying you couldn’t,” he reminded her, his voice just shy of patronizing. “But I’m not going to let you.”

She rolled her eyes right back at him. “Why not?”

“You’re above them,” he responded casually. He put the washcloth down and picked up the bandages, unrolling several inches and beginning to wrap the particularly deep cuts along her arm. 

Joyce shook her head. She looked over and watched his hands work. “But I already look the part,” she mumbled, speaking under her breath as opposed to him. She shrugged. “I already look like a whore.” 

Carter stopped, and his grip on her arm loosened. “Joyce-”

“Don’t… even-” she laughed bitterly. She refused to meet his eyes, turning her arm over as a signal for him to keep working.

He watched her face with his own expression severe, silent for several moments, before continuing to bandage her wounds. “Why do you say things like that,” he chasisted in a soft grumble, his jaw set, as he refocused on her arm. 

Joyce shifted in her seat. “You know me,” she flashed him a wry smile that scrunched her nose and eyes innocently, before promptly dropping it a second later. “Just being honest.” 

She could tell he was grinding his teeth as he tried to keep his hands from twitching, and he ripped off the edge of the bandage and tucked it into itself. He was quiet, likely trying to stomach the slew of scolds he wanted to unleash on her, but she was already in bad enough shape. 

It only took a glance at his face for Joyce to see the discord there, and she sighed. “I’m sorry,” she admitted. “I’m just saying that it’d be… better than this.” 

Carter straightened himself in his seat. “And I don’t think it would,” he disagreed as kindly as he could, but his tone was tough. He dampened the cloth again and beckoned her face forward for access at the gash along her jaw. “C’mere.”

She exhaled, resisting the urge to roll her eyes again, but she obeyed and leaned toward him. He gently held her cheek in one palm while he began to cautiously clean the part of her jaw that had been sliced open. They were both quiet again. 

Her teeth were grit to keep from wincing, though it didn’t entirely help. “Ow,” she complained flatly. 

Carter shook his head and gave her another look, before ignoring her in favor of working. After a moment, he sighed. “I keep thinking, it’s-” he took the cloth off her face and doused it in the water again. “I would let you stay with me, but-”

She pulled away to give him a similar disapproving glare that mimicked his previous ones. “Carter, come on.” She laughed, though her throat was dry and her attempt was quite unstable. “That’s sweet, but we both know I’d bleed you dry in a week.” She frowned at him. “I couldn’t ask you to put me up. It isn’t fair.” 

He grimaced, and for a moment, he opened his mouth to refute her, but he was silenced again. 

She continued, “I love you too much to let you sabotage yourself for me, so, no.” Joyce said simply, and crossed her arms. Carter pulled away with a sigh, biting the inside of his lip, one of his legs bouncing slightly. 

“Then there’s not a lot of options, Key.” He dropped the cloth on the table.

The stern expression didn’t leave Joyce’s eyes as she looked to him. “I know that.” 

He kept his gaze on hers for a long pause, before interrupting the silence by getting up off the couch, cloth and water in hand. Neither could think of a comforting enough word or semblance of solution, so quiet hung in the rundown apartment once more as Carter headed back to the kitchen to wash his things. 

Joyce ground her jaw and shifted in her seat, her eyes cast to the ground and her brow knit. “What about your gig?” She picked her gaze up and glanced to the kitchen just as the faucet was turned off. “With the, uh…” 

She snapped her fingers, the name on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t get the chance to recall it in full, before Carter cut her off with a scoff. “Alright.” 

Joyce dropped her hand, as he reappeared in the living room with the cloth, now re-dampened. “I’m serious,” she frowned.

He sat back down next to her and handed her the cold fabric again, a dry expression on his face all the while. “You want to work with me,” he clarified, a brow raised. 

She took the cloth back and pressed it to her eye again, but not without rolling her good one. “I want to work. Full stop,” she repeated. “Aren’t they always accepting members?” She raised her visible brow right back at him. 

Carter exhaled, and leaned back against the couch. He kicked his feet up. “I mean, sure, but,” he glanced up, turning the options over in his head. “The Wild Things are… particular, it’s…”

He clicked his tongue, and she looked to him with an expectant glare, as though yet to hear anything that would deter her. 

Carter caught her eyes and huffed, “Look, even if they did let you in, I don’t think you know what you’d be up against, Joyce,” he frowned to her. 

“I do. I-I don’t care,” she shook her head quickly. “But you think it’s possible?” She steered him back on track, a trace of a hopeful smile tugging at the edges of her lips. 

He brushed his hair out of his face with a shaking hand. He paused for a moment, before shrugging. “Okay, yeah, it’s possible, they could strike up a deal with you-”

She beamed, and he put a hand up. “ _ But _ ,” he shot her a look, “you’d have to pull a fuckton of weight to prove yourself to these guys. They could give you a boost, sure, but it’s not just, like, a job, it’s-”

“A gang, I know that, but I could  _ do _ it,” she interrupted him rapidly, an excited grin stuck on her face. “Right?” 

His warning glance seemed to falter to a sadder one, and he was silent for a moment. She looked as though she was about to press again, but he stopped her.

Carter put a hand on her knee. “Joyce, I-” he shook his head. “Is this really what you want?”

Her brow creased slightly, but her smile didn’t falter. “No,” she laughed, wavering, as though confused he would ask such a question at all. “No, why- why would any of this be what I want?” She giggled, and her voice hitched in her throat. 

He opened his mouth to talk her down, but she stood up, and he leaned back. She wiped at her face with the cloth. “Promise me you’ll give them a call. Or something,” Joyce looked down at him, offering her free hand to him, her pinky extended. 

Carter took a breath. “Joyce-”

“Promise me you’ll get me in.” 

He met her eyes from below, and nodded. He took her pinky in his. She dropped her hand, satisfied.

Joyce stepped around the couch, heading to the kitchen, and she set the cloth down on the counter. “I’ll, um…” she spoke up, “get out of your hair. Leave you to your deal,” she nodded with the confidence that was not present anywhere else in her body. 

Carter pushed himself to stand, and moved to the kitchen doorway. He was about to speak, but was cut off by the sound of a knock at the door. Tentative, but there. 

Joyce glanced to him from over her shoulder. “Just in time,” she remarked. 

She attempted to step around him. He caught her arm with his hand, but his grip wasn’t rough or commanding. She sighed, and stopped. 

“Stay the night,” he said low. 

She gently took her arm back, and he let her. “Carter.”

“Where else do you have to go?” 

The knock on the door came again, and he walked off, back toward the front of the apartment. She followed him with her gaze. “Plus,” he called behind him, and she watched him from the kitchen doorway, arms wrapped around herself, “it’s never too early to learn the ropes.” 

She exhaled, and nodded, but couldn’t quite force a smile. So she instead watched the door, and decided to observe, if only to get a head start on what might as well be the rest of her life. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a LOT of rpg based fics, and I'll probably post more as time goes on, in case someone is interested.


End file.
